At the beach… in Mullaitivu

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The beach in Mullaitivu is beautiful. It’s so calm, so serene.
I stood there with mixed emotions,
A beach so pure, untouched, yet also wounded
By the callous acts of a few,

It was in contrast to what we saw on our way here
Things best not seen or spoken of,

But there’s one thing I can’t get out of my head,
It’s this girl I saw
When I visited her school

Resting her head against arms, folded
and firmly placed on her desk
She started at me
I couldn’t read her expression,
I only managed a smile,
Afraid to look at her eyes for too long
Coz they told a story
of betrayal,
Of injustice, of shame, of a lost generation
She smiled back, heartily,
We spoke in a series of shy smiles
But, I wasn’t able to understand what she told me,
I wouldn’t understand even if I spoke to her
Coz I knew not her language,
A foreigner in my own land,
And I knew this is how they would feel
When they went to a place where none spoke their language
Would we smile then, heartily?

At the beach, the water trickled by, gently,
Disturbed only by the occasional wave that would lazily rise against the shore,
It was picturesque, it was free,
The water, the place where I stood
Free from worries at least for now
And I hope it would be this way for long
For the sake of the lost generation